Is it Wenger's ego rather than his ability that has cost us?

[IBK]

Thinking about the Giroud situation, it seems to me that when Wenger sold Van Perise, and brought in Giroud, Carzola and Podolski it must have been obvious to him that we would be nowhere near winning the league this season. Putting aside the advantage he handed Manure - Giroud was an obvious punt, coming from a weaker, and less physical league, despite his goal tally last season. Podolski - despite being a seasoned international had failed miserably at Bayern. Cazorla had done well at Malaga - but even if he was a superb technical player - he was far from tried and tested in the EPL.

And lets face it, Wenger is hardly a stranger to imports from foreign leagues crashing and burning, despite any impressive backgrounds.

For the past 6/7 years when we have been a selling club, the crown jewels that we have sold have all been Wenger development players (eg Cesc; Whore; RVP - even Song), or decent technical imports whom Wenger has provided a perfect platform to showcase their skills and can then claim that he has made them 'world class' (eg Nasri; Hleb).

The perception is that Wenger will never spend big on homegrown players, but that is not strictly true - as we paid top dollar for the likes of Walcott and the Ox.

The bottom line is that much of the reason why we have been treading water all these years is that with one noteable exception, Wenger only buys potential. We criticise him, but by any frame of reference he is far from being a 'shit' manager. He is simply not.

Instead, I wonder whether his true failing is simply that he is as happy to massage his ego by being famed for being the master developmental manager as for winning things, and would rather look constantly for the next Henri than make any pretence at competing properly with the big boys on the football pitch? In this, is club success merely secondary to Wenger's ego?

[LDG]

Last time I looked, Cazorla and Podolski were seasoned pro's, so I think that's a little harsh.

The difference is the price we pay for players, and that is also the difference (to a degree) in the level of player we have.

Though it could be argued that Cazorla was a snip, considering he's been one of our better "star" players. He's not Mata (don't get me wrong), but for 10mil or whatever, that's pretty good business.

[GP]

Surely delivering trophies would be better for his ego than how much he can sell a player for.

I mean, that's pretty obvious.

[Niall_Quinn]

My best guess. Wenger has an unflinching belief in principles that others will only speak to rather than practise. He thinks the game should not only be played in a certain way but run in a certain way. He makes no secret of it. Clubs living within their means, financial doping, level playing fields, these are the things he talks about. I picture him as a knight on horseback - going up against a tank and complaining furiously after he has been run over about the lack of honour displayed by the tank driver who, with a few levers, can easily overcome years of training, discipline, restraint, chivalry. For as much as he's practical in a financial sense he's utterly impractical and lost in ideology in other key areas connected to the game. An anachronism. If everyone thought his way then the sport would be better. With nobody else thinking his way he's left us, the fans, having to suffer for his ineffective (even if well intentioned) principles. Changing is easier said than done. You have to want to change, for a start, and I doubt he does.

Of course he's ideal for the like of Kroenke. Even if he didn't agree with what the yank is doing it wouldn't matter because their methods coincide even if their personal agendas don't. I'm not saying he's not fully on-board, just that it wouldn't really matter if he wasn't.

[Ollie the Optimist]

when you look at his recent signings in the last two years, they are not players who he can create into world class players like he did with henry.

Per
arteta
podolski
cazorla
giroud
monreal
and i include benayoun here even though he was a loan

of the others, the ox and gervniho, they are two players who have talent and he can work it.

so the majority of his recent signings are hardened seasoned professionals who he believes can help us acheive our aims by hitting the ground running etc and not by him creating the next henry/viera

[Marc Overmars]

Most of his recent signings have been players who have already hit, or are very close to hitting their ceilings. A problem when bringing in players like that is you really need them to be of the highest quality because they're unlikely to improve much. We've bought a lot of players who, with maybe the exception of Cazorla most would consider to be perhaps a level below the names that are revered in the game, so as a result our team remains stagnant.

How we could have done with some of our recent signings a few years ago when the team was young and had serious quality, but were crying out for some calmer heads.

I actually think he needs to bring in some players under 25 who he can work with, because lets face it one of Wenget's strengths is (was?) to polish rough diamonds. Maybe Jovetic could be one of these guys in the summer.

Even Fergie doesn't go heavy on ready made players anymore, RVC was his first worldie in years. The rest have been young guys who he can get the most out of in the long run.

[Niall_Quinn]

Yep, it's a key point the fact we didn't bring in the players when we really needed them. We always need to get right to the edge before reacting and then all that can be done is to hold the line. Everyone at the club seems to believe getting 4th in the face of spending from city and the chavs is some huge achievement. It's conveniently ignored that we were right up there with Utd in past years, they have gone on and continue to compete (and they poured a ton of investment into their stadium too), we fell back. Bare minimum done on the pitch to maximise the outcome on the balance sheet. That's our recent history. A very few have benefited to a ridiculous degree, the vast majority have been short changed. Just a couple of key signings at critical moments, that could have made the difference. Still, we will always have the morally superior cup, invisible as it is.

[IBK]

Surely delivering trophies would be better for his ego than how much he can sell a player for.

I mean, that's pretty obvious.

The evidence would suggest otherwise...

[Niall_Quinn]

The evidence would suggest otherwise...

Agreed. He seems to view himself as some sort of father figure with a responsibility for furthering the career of the player that outweighs his responsibility to the club. Maybe unfair but that's how it seems to me. When he loses the battle to keep the player (our board just stinks of shit) he then seems to become an agent for that player. Odd thing here is we're criticising him for doing the decent thing. But the decent thing just doesn't work in the shitty world of big business football.

[IBK]

Last time I looked, Cazorla and Podolski were seasoned pro's, so I think that's a little harsh.

The difference is the price we pay for players, and that is also the difference (to a degree) in the level of player we have.

Though it could be argued that Cazorla was a snip, considering he's been one of our better "star" players. He's not Mata (don't get me wrong), but for 10mil or whatever, that's pretty good business.

Carzola has been a 'snip' in hindsight. Seems to me that our purchase decisions have been made more on the basis that the manager might unearth gems at a cheaper price than successful teams are paying. So either the focus is more on being seen to be a genius who can succeed doing it AW's way, or that Wenger backs himself to win things despite his policies being flawed, objectively. In both cases it seems to me that there is an element of misplaced ego here.

The alternative is that Wenger is fully aware that his transfer strategy will not lead to success - in which case we have a manager happy to settle for second (fourth) best, which is simply wrong for a club of Arsenal's pedigree...